This invention relates to a semiconductor device, such as a bipolar transistor or an MOS transistor, and a method of manufacturing the same.
A semiconductor device comprises a semiconductor substrate and at least one PN junction formed in the substrate between a pair of semiconductor regions of different conductivity types. The device further comprises electrodes and insulating layers on the substrate.
According to a conventional method of manufacturing a semiconductor device, several glass masks are successively formed on the substrate to form the semiconductor regions, the insulating layer or layers, and the electrodes in desired patterns as will later be described. The glass masks should have predetermined sizes and be in registration with successively defined areas. The use of many glass masks is disadvantageous because it is difficult to form the glass masks in precise sizes. The registration of the glass masks is troublesome and is inevitably accompanied by variations from the desired positions. Such being the case, the patterns of the semiconductor device have to be designed with a wide margin. When the electrodes are formed on the respective semiconductor regions and extended onto the insulating layers, a space has to be left between each pair of adjacent electrodes. It is a recent trend to manufacture a semiconductor device as a large scale integrated circuit, but for the foregoing reasons the semiconductor device is not suitable for large scale integration.